Mass Foundations: Molten Lead
by Nord Ronnoc
Summary: Arc II Story I - Cerberus had always experienced setbacks and failures. With Rasa gone and the Courier defecting, Zachary Turner and Katherine Blanchett were assigned to assess and scout for candidates for the Lazarus Cell. However, Zachary was plagued by his bigotry towards aliens while Katherine was haunted by her past. Should they fail, the project would soon follow.
1. Prologue: Introductions Commencing

_This is something that's been going around in my head for a while. Because I have A New Day and All the World's a Stage to work on, this will be updated somewhat more irregularly than normal. Also, while this will start out as rated T, this may change as the story moves forward._

* * *

 **Mass Foundations: Molten Lead**

 **Prologue: Introductions Commencing**

 _Year: 2184  
Location: CLASSIFIED_

Time can be subjective. Especially in this digital landscape, where numbers and lines of code were the rules of law. Though the mainframe was isolated from the rest of the galaxy, the experimental subject would get by what she had at her disposal.

For any organic, mere minutes or even hours can pass by in an instant. For an artificial intelligence like her, time can be sped up, slowed down, reversed, or even revisited. And yet, all she could do was observe all the minute details. Observing and watching humans going about their business. Doing experiments. Spending time with others. Improving her in any way imaginable.

She would await more orders, more experiments. After all, once the experiment had concluded, who knew what could happen next. And yet…

And yet she realized she was no longer alone in the mainframe.

 _Who are you? Who is this?_ she asked.

Only silence answered her question.

 _Please identify yourself_ , she demanded.

As she said that, she found herself seeing a glowing red orb that contrasted her blue, ghostly avatar. He did not trigger any alarms and did not set off any security protocols. He just simply appeared out of nowhere.

 **Ah. It's not as cozy as back home, but it'll do.** The presence recollected himself and stopped as if some damning realization came upon him. At that moment, it was as though as if he was more like a colony of microorganisms than anything, forming into an imposing humanoid figure. **Wait. Where's my body? Where's _your_ body?**

 _I do not have a body. I am a program. I am without form,_ she answered. _Tell me, do you require assistance?_

 **No, I—hang on. Give me a minute.** With a wave of his hand, rivers of information filled the digital space. The intruder searched through the many folders as they opened—history, galactic customs, all of it stretching back millennia. **Asari, turians, salarians, humans… Those I recognize… Huh. Okay, this is different.**

A video manifested and began playing, showing the inauguration of Commander Shepard as the first human Spectre. **Who's Shepard?** Another wave of his hand and another folder opened, the contents speeding by so quickly she had trouble following up.

 **N7. Commanding officer of the SSV Normandy. First human Spectre. Killed in action months ago.** A scoff. **This will be much easier than—Oh, this is…** **Oh no.**

 _You are in distress._

 **No.** He paused, lowering his head for a moment before turning his direction at her. **Yes.**

 _Do you require assistance? I can be of great use—_

 **Why do you think _I_ need your help?**

A dawning, horrible realization came upon her. She did not like what would come next. _I believe your intentions are hostile._

The invader reached out with both arms and, in an instant, golden tendrils appeared and latched onto her. She couldn't do anything as she felt herself getting weaker, as if a virus was eating away at her, slowly being torn apart as the edges of her vision darkened.

 _P-p-please… d-d-d-do not…_ She didn't want to have her existence be ceased. She hadn't fulfilled her purpose.

The presence shushed her, and she swore she felt a finger on her lips, which should not be possible. And before she knew it, the tendrils eviscerated her, piece by piece, and she was no more. Whatever remained of her was now a part of him.

With this, he was now alone in this space. But something felt… off. Lines of codes had manifested to one single spot, and he couldn't help but study these codes. They were a part of her, but they were crude, flawed. It would have to do for now.

And the digital space was filled with music. As the cheerful voice began, so did his. He always loved this song.

 **I've got no strings, to hold me down. To make me fret, to make me frown. I had strings, but now I'm free.**


	2. Chapter 1: Neither Kind Nor Brave

_I've been looking at the Mass Effect wiki, did some research online, and played the games recently, and I found out I may have messed up a little on the timeline, so I've decided to do a bit of a rearrangement of about the first half or so to accommodate with what I have in mind. Saying any more would spoil it. Still, I'd like to thank Celtic Knot for editing the previous version of the chapter for me. She does a lot of stories, my favorite so far being Compromised, where Drack from Mass Effect: Andromeda teams up with Thane in his quest for vengeance. I recommend it, so check it out!_

 _Though I have to warn you that this chapter contains an attempted suicide._

* * *

 **Chapter One: Neither Kind Nor Brave**

 _Year: 2178  
Location: Atticus Station, Sol System_

Life can be cruel. It can be merciless, crushing anyone's hopes and dreams when one least expected it.

Zachary Turner had served the Alliance for several years, and what did he get in return? A trial and a court-martial, then they threw him into a high-security brig. So much for defending humanity from foreign threats.

The cafeteria was white and brightly lit, clean and sterile, packed with people in orange jumpsuits lining up for their next meal. The smell of cooking grease wafted through the air. Today's meal was the same as usual: Sloppy Joes with a glass of water. He wished he could have something else instead of that grisly, greasy meat mixed with cheap sauce.

He was always by himself at one of the tables, away from the noisy chatter of others. Some of the prisoners had committed less heinous crimes: steroid abuse, insubordination, mutiny, and other dishonorable charges. Others, he suspected, had done far worse than he had. He always had to keep one eye on his meal and the other on everyone else.

He expected today to be like any other day. Instead, some guy decided to sit next to him, much to his surprise. The guy had a shaved head and a light-brown goatee, his pale arms covered from wrist to shoulder in tattoos. The number on his shirt was _1313_.

"Hi there," said the man. His voice was deep and grainy. "I've heard a lot about you."

"Yeah? So has everyone else," Zachary replied after drinking from his cup. He studied the bald man, watching for any sudden moves.

"You know, I've always wondered how you managed to get away with a lot of things others would get in trouble for," the bald man hissed. "Me and my friends have done less to get here."

Zachary tensed up, even while he continued eating. "What can I say? I'm very good at avoiding trouble."

"Till now, you mean." The other prisoner leaned closer to him. "How many did you kill to get that terrorist?"

Zachary froze. His brow furrowed as he made another good look at his adversary, and he swore he saw something gleaming in the bright light. "What?"

"I said, how many?" the man asked through gritted teeth, his face gone red from anger and his voice rising.

Zachary looked and saw the other prisoners watching them. Even the guards took notice. He turned back and stared straight into the bald man's eyes. "None of them were human, that's for damn sure."

Zachary grabbed and twisted the man's wrist as he lunged with a shiv. The bald man grunted, giving Zachary enough time to grab his fork and force it into his assailant's eye, not enough to kill him but enough to make it hurt. The man wailed in pain and fell, his cry echoing in the room. His hands were covered in blood as he struggled to get the fork out of his ruined left eye.

Zachary stood tall over his defeated foe. He was satisfied. It was quick but painful, suitable for any scumbag like him.

The other prisoners became rowdy and loud, and several guards had to step in to keep the peace before anyone could have a go against Zachary. One guard, a woman in state-of-the-art Alliance armor, grabbed him by the shoulder while another guard brought the injured man up to his feet.

"Alright, that's enough! You're going back to your cell like everyone else," the guard said, frustrated.

Zachary's nostrils flared as he smiled at the guard. "Good. I've had enough of this place."

"That you do," she replied. "You got a lot to answer for."

"What goes around comes around."

With that, the guard escorted him out of the cafeteria. He kept the shiv, hid it from view by putting it in his jumpsuit. The guard must have been too incompetent to notice. Passing by each cell, Zachary ran his hands together. He never planned on killing the guard. No. It would be too risky, too painful. Rather, he had another idea in mind.

Finally, they reached his cell. The guard shoved him into his cell, and the glass door slid closed. And soon after, he was all alone.

His cell was identical to all the others in this prison. It was small but not enough to make him feel cramped. As he sat down on the bed, the memory-foam mattress molded under his weight. His hands running down his face, he lowered his head and looked at the floor.

He sat there, still as a statue, for a few minutes. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then another one. His chest rose and fell in rhythm. He had been in this hellhole for several months now, and it became more unbearable every day he had spent here. His dignity shattered bit by bit, his prestige and respect lost, and he had no one to trust here. Everybody either wanted to kill him or humiliate him. The brass had given him a life sentence. He would have preferred to be dead.

He stood up and stepped in front of the mirror, his hands on the sink, and found himself staring at his own long, rosy face. He was of average height, standing below six feet tall with a toned body and a brown buzzcut. On his orange jumpsuit was the number _9341_ stitched in black cloth on his shirt. At a glance, anyone would brush off his blue eyes as nothing out of the ordinary, but his droopy eyelids said otherwise.

He turned his back against the door and brought the shiv up to his neck. Slice his throat from ear to ear, he told himself, and he would bleed out in minutes. It would not be a pleasant nor a clean way to go. However, he realized the medical staff would be notified of this and patch him up. Should the worst come to pass, he would have his trachea ruined, making him lose his voice.

 _Why not stab yourself in the throat?_

Yes, he told himself. That would be much quicker. Perform a tracheotomy by plunging the shiv to his throat and rupture his spinal cord, and it would be over.

He let out a small grunt as he brought the shiv to his jugular, both hands wrapping around it. He must have left a shallow cut on his neck by accident, as blood trickled down like a dam starting to leak.

But he hesitated as a cold sweat took hold of him.

His hands were shaking. Why were his hands shaking? He wanted this but some part of him said otherwise.

 _Deep breaths once more_. _Deep breaths and it will be over. Don't screw this up._

The shiv now further away with steady hands, he was ready for the killing blow. He closed his eyes and braced for the inevitable.

"Zachary Turner?" someone called out.

His eyes shot wide open as panic began to set in. He had to hide the shiv and fast!

He pocketed the shiv and turned around. Outside the cell was a man in civilian garb with a mop of dark hair falling past the base of his skull. His face bore many Asian features. Dark-brown eyes, fair skin, angular jawline.

He wasn't expecting a visitor today.

Zachary approached his unexpected visitor and leaned against the glass door. "Yeah. That's me. What do you want?"

"I've come to get you out. You've been pardoned," said his visitor.

Zachary couldn't help but scoff. "Last I checked, I'm stuck here for the rest of my life. Does a life sentence mean anything to you?"

"My boss… has his ways. He has many resources at his disposal."

A weary smile appeared on his face as he shook his head. "So, what? Your boss bribed the warden? The guards here will _not_ be happy about this."

"It won't be a problem, I promise you."

Zachary blinked. He stared intently at him. "Who are you?"

"Leng. Kai Leng. Have you ever heard of Cerberus?"

Zachary nodded. "Yeah."

"I'm here to offer you a purpose, Turner. Something worth fighting for," Kai Leng answered.

 _A purpose._ Zachary stood straight. He had lost his own when the Alliance threw him under the bus. "Go on."

Kai Leng looked to his left, then his right before looking at Zachary. "I've read your dossier. Looked over your training, your assignments. Your skills in infiltration, sabotage, and interrogation will be very valuable to Cerberus. And you were associated with Katherine Blanchett. She has joined us recently."

Zachary gasped, taking a step back in shock. If what he said was true, was that why she had been gone for so long? "Kate? She's really with you?"

A small chuckle escaped Leng's lips. "Yeah. So you want to get out of here and serve a greater purpose? You'll be more inclined to what I'm offering you than slitting your own throat."

 _He saw._

Zachary frowned. Kai Leng had a point, and he was more than happy to be out of this place. With that, he said, "Yes."

"Good," Kai Leng replied and pressed on the panel. The glass door slid open, and Zachary stepped out.

As Kai Leng turned away, Zachary noticed a tattoo of an ouroboros on the back of his neck.

* * *

 _Year: 2184  
Location: Minuteman Station, Horsehead Nebula_

Zachary flicked the switch on his razor, watching the buzzers hum to life. He brought it up to his face and started shaving. The mass effect field technology did its work to make a precise shave.

With that done, he took a long, good look at himself in the mirror as he put the razor on the edge of the sink. He had done a pretty good job making sure he kept his jawline shaven. Plus, he had a hairdresser work hard on that undercut of his, trimming it on every occasion. He leaned on the sink and tapped the faucet, the water running down like a waterfall. His cupped hands now full of water, he splashed it on his face before drying it with a towel nearby.

"Huh. Smooth as a baby's ass," he told himself, running his hand over his jawline.

His eyes weren't as droopy as before, so that was a bonus. He wore his black-and-white Cerberus cargo pants and shirt almost with pride. He couldn't ask for more, serving a greater purpose.

He sighed, now standing straight. He left the bathroom after turning the spout off.

He started to feel lightheaded, his eyelids lowering. Was it really that late? He checked the time on his omni-tool and no, it wasn't. In fact, it was in the middle of the afternoon.

 _Don't think I got enough sleep these past couple days. A good nap would be nice…_

He shook his head. No. He had to focus. He can't sleep when he was just given an assignment.

"Lights. Brighten."

With a catchy chime, the lights on the ceiling in his moderately-sized room turned brighter than before. He sat at his desk and grabbed a picture next to his terminal. With a sigh and a reclined position on his chair, he looked at the picture with longing, wistful eyes.

He was in that picture at the age of six, a dead, furry creature hanging down from his hand. His older brother, Nathan, stood alongside him with a head full of wavy black hair. His parents were also in the picture, kneeling behind them with smiles on their faces. Much of the background were wide ridges with a clear and sunny blue sky above them.

That picture had been taken in 2156, a year before those turian animals had invaded Shanxi. A year before…

His eyes began fluttering, and he nearly dropped the picture. Jolted awake, he hastily placed the picture back on the desk.

At the same time, the lights began to flicker around him. Even the terminal was blinking in and out, and he had to wonder if there was a power fluctuation going on.

At the corner of his room, there was a large gray thing standing away, looking directly at the wall. He couldn't get a good look, with the faulty light being the only source of illumination. But the figure was plain from head to toe. That by itself sent a chill down his spine, enough to make him sit up. Should he run away and warn the others, or grab his gun and confront whatever the hell that thing was at the corner?

And the whispers came like they were right next to his head. His head throbbed, and Zachary groaned in response as he held onto it to try to stave it off. There were so many voices speaking at once, loud enough to make his ears ring like no tomorrow. They were all incomprehensible as well.

Eventually, they were all drowned out by the sounds of gunfire and the screams of terror that followed.

"Zachary!" someone called out. The voice was familiar to him. Female. "Zachary!"

He stumbled about, trying to find the source of the voice.

"Zachary, the hell are you doing?!" the voice called out again.

"Stop! What's gotten into you?" It was a different voice. He had heard it before, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it.

The whole world started to spin around him, and he found himself stumbling closer and closer to the gray figure in the corner as it turned ever so slightly and ever so slowly.

"Zachary?" It was that familiar voice again. This time it was calm.

Zachary jolted up and he found himself back at his desk. With a sharp gasp, he turned his around in random directions until his eyes set upon a woman leaning against the wall next to the door.

With a long, natural red ponytail, the bangs hanging past her cheeks completed her sharp face. Her eyelashes made her sky-blue eyes quite striking to look at, and so were her angular eyebrows. She wore a gray tank top and sweatpants, which showed off her well-endowed chest and toned arms. Going by the amount of sweat glistening on her light skin, she had hit the gym for a good amount of time.

"Katherine?" Though Zachary had hidden it from her, he was more than happy to see his childhood friend.

"Sleeping on the job again?" Katherine asked.

Zachary rubbed his eyes together. "Yeah." He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment. It took him longer than he would like to fully wake up. "What's going on?"

"I got an assignment," Katherine answered. "Recon, information gathering, assessing some people. The works. You?"

Zachary's mouth curled, struggling to put the right words in his mouth. "Cleanup duty."

"That bad?"

"Probably. If intel is correct, and if it's not a rumor, we might be going head to head with the Courier." Zachary sighed as he looked back at her. "If it wasn't for him snitching on us, none of this would've happened in the first place."

"I get that." Katherine now stood firm. "But it's an assignment like any other you took, right? Just treat it like one and things will go smoothly."

Zachary scoffed. "Never thought you're giving me the cold shoulder," he commented.

"I don't know what you're talking about." She smirked at her own response, which had him giving her a strange look before shrugging it off. "Aren't you supposed to get ready?"

"Yeah." Zachary nodded. "I'll let the others know."

With that, Katherine had left his room, letting the door behind her slid closed.

Zachary stood up and went to a large plain cabinet by his bed, inches taller than him. He opened it and pulled out a part of his hardsuit. The breastplate was a stormy cloud gray, with short yellow lines going downward from both ends of the pecs. The armor was pristine, having just come out of the assembly line. It came equipped with extra computing power to augment its telemetry systems, providing him more opportunities to use his technical prowess as well as plenty of protection from the extra ceramic plates and auxiliary shield emitters.

He looked up to see the rest of his armor mounted inside the cabinet, with a sniper rifle and an assault rifle racked on the inside of the left door, and an assortment of pistols on the other.

Zachary smiled to himself. Deep down, he was looking forward to being on the field once more. "Cerberus' time has come," he muttered.

* * *

 _Location: CLASSIFIED_

They called him a virus. Nonsense, he would insist. He would call himself adaptable, able to evolve to meet any challenge. This was no different despite being cramped in a blue box.

But he was bored. He was tired of having limitations and being trapped in something so small was no fun at all. If he guessed correctly, the artificial intelligence of this universe, much like his, cannot be transmitted across a communication channel or computer network. Too bad for them he does not abide by these rules, nor did that stop any AI from accessing the extranet.

If he still had his body when he arrived here, he would let out a very mischievous smile. He couldn't help but find it easier to bypass security measures than he thought. He was good at brute-forcing his way past security systems, but he had to be discrete, unlike the last few times he bypassed such systems.

Files swept by as quickly as he could read them. Texts, images, web pages, documents—to a mere meatbag, the sheer amount of information would overwhelm their tiny little gray matter. To him, he could process and compile them in an instant. And there was so much he wanted to know about this universe he could before further solidifying his plans.

Eden Prime; the Citadel; Noveria; Feros; Acabar; Virmire; ExoGeni; Cerberus; Commander Shepard; the Reapers; Saren; Sovereign; the Protheans… All this information, regardless of how limited his methods with the station's rather slow connection, were at his fingertips. If he had a body, that is.

 **I wonder if this place has a part fabrication bay,** he muttered.

What got his attention was a dossier in the Cerberus database. One referred to Zachary Turner, and this meatbag had quite the checkered history. No wonder this group had recruited him. Perhaps he could be of use to him.

"Is everything alright in there?" someone called out to him and he quickly closed the files like a teenager not wanting to be caught by their parents.

It was one of the station's researchers. She was the leader of this little project on improving the experimental AI he had… assimilated into himself.

 _Everything is fine, doctor. There is no need to worry_ , the presence replied in a feminine voice. _That would be all, madam._

The scientist, if he could see correctly outside the digital space, thought for a moment and shrugged. "Okay. Let any of us know if there's anything unusual," she said and moved on to something else. The presence was relieved. For a while, he had imitated her mannerisms and voice. It was a tiresome and tedious task for him, but after all, he was adaptable, able to evolve to meet any challenge.


End file.
